Kansas River question.

[forrestkc]

Hi everyone, my name is Forrest and I am new to the BOC forums. Moved up here a few years ago from central Arkansas and live in Roeland Park, KS. I have done a lot of catfishing fishing on the Wakarusa, Perry, and Clinton Lake, but have not fished the Kaw much other than right below Bowerstock Dam there in Lawrence and a couple of times below that earthen dam there at 435. I have a five year old son that loves fishing and he has been relentlessly begging me to take him out camping again this summer. I told him I would take him camping this weekend (this was a couple of weeks ago before I saw the heat wave in the forecast). At any rate I told him that we would go camping on a sand bar on the Kaw. I have a canoe, and 3 weeks ago we put in there at the ramp on cedar creek there in Desoto and checked out the Kansas river from there. At the time the river was fairly low and the current was so weak that I could paddle up or down stream fairly easily. We only paddled about a mile or so up the kaw from the cedar creek confluence and about a mile or so down, but at the time it looked as though the river was mostly real shallow (even drug a lot in the canoe) with a few deeper holes. The deepest seemed to be on the South side of the river just down from where cedar creek run into it. I have put in there at Eudora on the Wakarusa several times in my canoe and fished the snags for Flathead (that Wakarusa seems to be just full of flathead), but I have never taken it down to the Kaw. At any rate, I figured we would load the canoe up and go out Saturday evening, find us a sandbar that we could fish a good hole from, and camp and fish there. With the heat being what its going to be we probably wont get out there until 7:00 PM or so Saturday and leave the next morning before it gets too hot. My question is are we better off putting in there at Desoto, and trying to find a good hole there with a sandbar to camp from there, or are we better off putting in there at Eudora, taking the Wakarusa down to the Kaw, and finding a sandbar near a good deep hole there to fish and camp from?

Any insights from any of yall experienced Kansas River catmen would be much appreciated.

[dougc]

Charlie, where are you at? Somebody needs help!

[center12]

With the water as low as it is finding a sandbar within casting distance of a hole will be hard. That said, you can go above the Eudora bridge(on the Kaw) and fish from sandbars across from the wingdams. You may end up in the water pulling a bit but the water should be pretty slack on the North side going upstream. You can also go downstream to the hole that sit's at the head of the train track bend, there will be a big back water area on the left side before the bend.

If it was me with my kid, I'd go where I've been before in the daylight. If you saw a good campsite down from Cedar I'd probably go there, that's a nice deep area downstream from the mouth. 3 or 4' will be deep water around any sandbar, check the downstream end of the bar for a deepish feeding flat.

Find ya a big sandbar, collect lots of firewood and set a nice camp..........your 5 year old will love it, fish or not!! Something about kids and sandbars, they just love to run and roam them. Toads will be out so let him "hunt" bait, the selection of a good walking stick was also very high on my boys list of things to do. Take chicken liver, small cats will keep you and your boy busy if you find decent water.

Good luck to you and your son, sandbar camping is a blast(fish or not).

[forrestkc]

Yeah, I figured it would be so shallow that finding something in casting distance from a bar would be hard. I have a couple of 14 foot rods that I can get out a long ways with if I have enough weight. I figured I would bait one of them up if I could reach some deeper water and bait up a rod for him for channels. I hear you on the daylight thing. The last thing I would want is to be stuck out on that river in a canoe after dark with my son.

When I was kid growing up in Arkansas, we camped on the sand bars on the Arkansas river and the Ouachita river a lot. Always was a blast no matter how hot it was.

[janton311]

I have no help for ya but WELCOME TO THE BOC...